The Ethnopoetics of Space and Transformation

This book is a serious attempt to move children and youths from their subdisciplinary crib to the world of people, placing their lived worlds at the core of critical geographical inquiry. By re-exposing himself to the experiences and expressions of the differently situated children and youths he has worked with over the years, Aitken proves such binaries as Politics/politics, adult/child, homed/homeless more harmful than useful in understanding the contemporary change. Kirsi Pauliina Kallio, University of Tampere, Finland Stuart Aitken elegantly weaves the lives and voices of children, young people, and their families into an ethnographic narrative of spirit, hope and belief in the possibility of transformation. Traversing the world through his research, he explores the ways that young people experience, give meaning to, and disrupt the places they create. It is a beautiful and necessary book. Lynn A. Staeheli, Durham University, UK We are used to seeing children as subjects of protection, care and rights. Aitken adds another dimension, regarding children as political beings, being involved in transformations of social relations and spaces in their own playful and surprising ways. Read this book for its concrete transformative practices, a true remedy against deep inequalities and injustices. Jelka Zorn, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia This is a necessary and innovative book: it succeeds in vividly painting a well-researched map of emotional landscapes, shaped as they are by youth across the globe in their response to adverse circumstances, as well as including expressive poetry as an amplification of critical theory. It is an excellent guide to the contemporary forms of social and economic, moral and aesthetic change. Ale Debeljak, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 'I was grateful for the focus on the importance of contextincluding histories of institutions, spatial affordances, and emotion as drivers for changeand value that t

Stuart C. Aitken is June Burnett Chair of Childrens and Family Geographies, Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Youth and Space (ISYS) and Professor of Geography at San Diego State University, USA.

Chapter 1; Chapter 2 Ethnopoetics; Chapter 3 Disrupting Spatial Competencies and Affordances; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8 The Poetic Aesthetics of Children's Politics;